Leaving Facebook

Leaving Facebook has been on my mind for years. I have deactivated my account twice, and was brought back for one reason or another. The scariest thing I have learned through the few times I have left Facebook was the dependency on it. Not so much my own, but the majority of the western world. People rely so heavily on Facebook that they will forget about others entirely because there is no longer any need to be accountable or responsible to anyone. So just a few minutes ago, I found the ever hidden “Permanently Delete My Account” page and opted out of the most successful and widely used website in the world, besides probably Google and all of its properties (You’re next Goolag!). Now there are a lot of great things about Facebook; don’t get me wrong. I am in no way trying to say that Facebook is a horrible monstrosity of internet limbo that offers nothing. Shit, just a few weeks ago a cousin from Australia, whom I only ever met once during my 1990 trip to Australia with my father, found me via Facebook. I can’t tell you how many friends I thought I would never see or hear from again have found me via Facebook. I have been able to learn about a tragedy as it is unfolding, and be able to be present for friends in need. Facebook is a great tool.

But then there is the laundry list of bullshit. From data mining (much more insidious than you might imagine) to owning intellectual property on your page, from creating an echo chamber to directly attacking free speech, Facebook has become the most erosive element to the human condition, and the very anathema of communication. We have forgotten how to talk to one another. We don’t talk anymore, because will have seen it on Facebook. We have used Facebook to bully and doxx, to destroy the lives of someone because they have a divergent opinion or view. As a society, we no longer are held accountable for our actions. If we don’t like something, we can just delete it. And we think that reading a message board on steroids is equivalent to social action. Remember #KONY2012? Did we really think we were going to overthrow a military dictator with a hashtag? How self-important have we become that we think anybody cares about what we say?

So I left. I felt somewhat anxious about it when i got home from work, and was cooking up reasons as to why I should stay. With a friends list over 1.5K people long and an ego that loves Olympic weightlifting, I could find a multitude of reasons to not go. But when i collected my thoughts and focused on important shit, like my breath and the present moment, I knew that if I didn’t pull the trigger now, I would be forever doomed to wear the albatross of Facebook around my neck. SO I broke the chains and I ran. As far as the next button which brought me to this page and gives me cursor and a static page where I can espouse my self-importance into the ether of the interwebs, without any care and consideration for how many likes it got.